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Archive for January, 2011

Nordson New Corporate Headquarters Incorporates Leading Green Building Technologies.

Nordson Corporation recently opened a new 28,000 square-foot global headquarters facility in Westlake, Ohio that incorporates leading green building technologies and is expected to earn a prestigious Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) certification later in 2011.

The winner of an international design competition to double the size of the existing Beijing Central Business District (CBD), this master plan by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM) accommodates 7-million square meters of gross building area in a 3-square kilometer redevelopment zone.Addressing the requirements of the competition brief, the expanded district remains consistent with the existing CBD functions, containing Class-A office space, quality housing, hotels, retail and entertainment.Special attention is given to integrating existing residential and commercial buildings into the expanded vision, while new cultural facilities add to the vibrancy and civic nature of the district .

SOM’s vision for the Beijing CBD provides the framework that will enable China’s capital city to grow as a global center for commerce

The Aquilialberg project of the Public Library of Bressanone has the aim to become a new gathering location for the population. Following this line, the project is designed to assure wide spaces for socialization, both interior and exterior, to accommodate public manifestations and cultural encounters. It is a place to spread knowledge, in which citizen could feel themselves at ease and spend spare time constructively. A deep design study is conducted for the new volume; the starting point was the relation with the existing neighbours volumes and their geometries. An especially attention is given to the orientation of the roofs’ slopes of the closest buildings, with the purpose to match, in the most elegant way, the new project with the context of the city. The composition language, developed in the design of the new volume, came from the push of the neighbour roofs’ slopes through the competition site. A void is generated and it worked as a hinge matching the existing volumes with the new Library building. The Hinge-Volume material is glass, chosen to respect the relation between historical past of the existing and the new presence.

In the beginning, it will be a park – a green area of five hectares, which will immediately replace the asphalt landscape and warehouses constructed in the ‘60s and ‘70s. This first phase will see both the renovation of historic buildings of the old factory and the creation of leisure facilities along the border heading south towards the river Leno. The return of industrial buildings, which will appear at a later stage in the development, will be suggested in the landscape of the park, through parallel strips mimicking the surrounding vineyards, and hiding the pre-constructed infrastructure under the ground. As the development grows, strips of the park will be raised up to reveal the warehouses below, and remain as the roofs of the buildings themselves, integrating the buildings with the park and surrounding landscape. This development will minimize the drawbacks of traditional work yards, and return a large amount of ex-industrial land back to nature and the use of the town.

The Canton Tower is Guangzhou’s most prominent new building that was set Center Stageduring the recent Opening Ceremony of the Asian Games. After 6 years of design and building works, Mark Hemel + Barbara Kuit, the designers of the tower, and their Amsterdam firm, Information Based Architecture, are pleased to announce that theCanton Tower has now been opened to the public. The Canton Tower – reaching 600m in height, has bypassed Toronto’s CN tower and has therefore become “The world’s tallest TV Tower”

New World Symphony, America’s Orchestral Academy, marks a new era for classical music with the inauguration of the institution’s first purpose-built home, an extraordinary new facility in the center of Miami Beach. Designed by Frank Gehry in close collaboration with the New World Symphony’s founder and artistic director Michael Tilson Thomas, New World Center opens up exciting new possibilities in the way music is taught, presented and experienced and dramatically advances New World Symphony’s mission to provide exceptional professional training for the gifted young music school graduates who are its Fellows.

Cutting-edge architectural design by West 8 defines New Miami Beach Cultural Venue and ExoStage Provides Unique Outdoor Arts Experience. West 8 has delivered on its mission of a green park, not a plaza, a park that feels intimate, shady, and soft was created; a park that will support the world-class attraction of the New World Symphony Building. Lincoln Park reflects the spirit and vitality of Miami Beach and will support a multitude of day and night uses, either under the shade of the trees or a starlit sky.

BIG wins the international competition to design a new waste-to-energy plant. Located in an industrial area near the city center the new Waste-to-Energy plant will be an exemplary model in the field of waste management and energy production, as well as an architectural landmark in the cityscape of Copenhagen. The project is the single largest environmental initiative in Denmark with a budget of 3,5 Billion DKK, and replaces the adjacent 40 year old Amagerforbraending plant, integrating the latest technologies in waste treatment and environmental performance. The shortlisted offices included Wilkinson Eyre Architects, Dominique Perrault Architecture, 3xN, Lundgaard & Tranberg Architects & Gottlieb Paludan Architects who were selected to compete out of 36 international proposals in Fall 2010. The winning team is announced by an unanimous judge panel.

Archipelontwerpers designed this ‘Steel Study House II’ in Leeuwarden, a provincial town in the north of Holland. The landscape in this region has been conquered from the sea and therefore it is mostly flat and consists of green polders, dykes and many lakes.